Continental J.

Education Research 4 (2): 22 - 28, 2011 Wilolud Journals, 2011 ` Printed in Nigeria

ISSN: 2141 - 4181 http://www.wiloludjournal.com

GLOBILIZATION AND EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: WHICH WAY FORWARD? Alice Ekundayo Olatunji Department of Counselling and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Lead City University, Ibadan ABSRACT The concept of globalization is to make the world into a global village; provide enabling environment for international cooperation for social development, poverty eradication, create a new world economic order, promote social integration and ensure equity and respect for human dignity. Thus, a truly globalised world economy requires the contribution, cooperation and commitment of a maximum of people, states and institutions. Because the effect of globalization is the same on all the third countries of the world, however, my limited references shall focus on Africa and Nigeria. In spite of the promise of the countries of the G8 to assist Africa in the spirit of globalization through the integration of Africa into the world market; debt burden relieve, promotion of agriculture to boost efficiency of local capacity, political system reform to create a broader spread of civil society participation, stoppage or curtailment of crises in the continent and motivating African nations to be responsible for the development of the continent, these are mere rhetoric without corresponding concrete actions. In this work, more focus will be on the deficiency of the educational system in Nigeria as one hindrance of the impact of integrating globalization into the Nigerian system despite all efforts from within and outside the continent of Africa. KEYWORDS: Globalisation, Educational Development INTRODUCTION The topic of Globalization and the attendant challenges for education, politics, economics, culture and morality in the human society has become a source of major concern for educators across the world. Now when combined with the reality of Urbanization and Post Modernity, the challenges become even more complex. Yet educationist cannot run away from confronting the challenges posed by what appears to be a major transformation in the form of existence and the manner of interaction among human beings. The revolution in modern communication technology with the emergence of the computer and the internet, which have conquered space and reduced the world to a global village, the internationalization of the economy and industry, by which a few countries are growing ever more affluent, while the fortunes of the majority of peoples are ever worsening. TOWARDS IMPROVING THE STATUS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN NIGERIA The term education is quite elusive and very difficult to pin down to a single definition. This is because numerous authorities in different fields define education as it appeals to them and their background. In any case education is what helps us to acquire suitable appreciation of our cultural heritage and to live a fully more satisfying life. This includes the acquisition of desirable knowledge, skill, habit, values for productive living in the society. It equips the member of any human group with the capabilities of personal survival in contributing to other group survival globally. ( Alade, 2006). The forgoing explains that the end purposes of education include the cognitive development, the development of deeper intellectual skills and character training concerned with the appreciations, feelings and values of those educated. It is also a crystal clear that education reverse to both the process by which we acquire knowledge, skill, habit and values as well as the result of the process that involves both learning and teaching. So no one would doubt the value of being educated in any community. A clear testimony to this statement is in the adage, if you plan for one year, plant rice; if you plan for ten years plant trees; if you plan for hundred years, educate a person. Yes indeed the best and long last lasting gift any one can offer to someone or any community in this regards is good education.

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Education is one of the correlates of socio-economic, cultural, political, democratic, technological, and medicolegal development of a nation. Education thus restores to mankind its humanity. It is globally a very vital element for social development and economic growth all over the world. This explains why nations have expended a lot of resources on education. Education in general (primary, secondary or tertiary) is fundamental to the construction of a knowledge economy and society globally (Okebukola, 2000). Yet the potentials of higher education systems in developing countries to fulfill this responsibility is frequently thwarted by long standing problems of finance, efficiency, equity, quality and governance among others. Now, these old challenges have been augmented by new challenges linked to the growing role of knowledge in economic development, rapid changes in telecommunication technology, and the globalization of trade and labor markets (Obi, 2003). Education is often linked to schooling and schooling improves productivity, health and reduces negative features of life such as child labor as well as bringing about empowerment. This is why there has been a lot of emphasis particularly in recent times for all citizen of the world to have access to basic education. Education as a social institution therefore could be seen as a great value concerned with imparting knowledge and skill which helps individual to participate in the society (Ramon-Yusuf, 2003). Today, university is an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic and innovation for the over-all socio-economic empowerment of individual and community development (Babalola & Okediran, 1997). Section B sub-section 59 of Nigerian National Policy on Education (2004) articulates the goals of tertiary education in the country thus, to: a. Contributing to national development through high level relevant manpower training b. Develop and inculcate proper values for survival of the individual and society c. Develop the intellectual capacity of individuals to understand and appreciate their local and external environment d. Acquire both physical and intellectual skill which will enable individual to be self-reliant and useful members of the society e. Promote and encourage scholarship and community service f. Forge and cement national unity g. Promote national and international understanding PROBLEMS FACING EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA Unfortunately in Nigeria the current reality that stares us at the face is that in-spite of the huge expenditure on education at all levels, our education has failed to produce school leavers a combination of skills and values system that could make them self-reliant. The Nigeria educational system has been beset with a number of ills over the years, these problems arose from the general malaise that beset the leadership and society at large. Some of these include; a. High incidence of examination mal practices b. Extortion c. Cultism d. Sexual harassment e. Incessant strikes among various academic unions at all levels of education f. Poor data collection and decay infrastructure. All these have led to fallen standards and the failure to realize the philosophy and the objectives of education. These have further been accentuated by the general ethical crises that are confronting the Nigerian society. There are no facilities for effective practical for students in most of our courses especially technological universities, and in-fact, when universities face accreditation exercise it is shameful to observe that in order to scale hurdle of accreditation, some department have to borrow equipment from neighboring and sisters institution and present them, claiming that these are there equipment. CHALLENGES FACING HIGHER EDUCATION IN NIGERIA In specific terms, a lot of challenges are facing higher education in Nigeria which made it difficult for it to achieve its objective. These includes among others;

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a.

Relevance of curriculum content an choice: (Okebukola, 2003) revealed that while the content of the minimum standard course descriptions laid down by the Nigerians universities commission (NUC) for Nigerians universities agreed well with course content of universities in most developed nations, a gap still exist in implementation instead of implementing the NUC minimum standard, most of the course offered in Nigeria which were initially meant to develop people for bureaucratic functions in the society, are not well taught since in this age of globalization, some lecturers merely dictates note they copied as student without regular up-dating. Quality of teaching and learning: the increased enrolment in Nigeria universities in face of dwindling resources into the university system also affect graduate out-put. Consequently there were incessant strike actions by academics, nonacademic staff and university students between these periods. Thus, the time available for teaching and learning became disturbingly reduced; university teachers became unmotivated to teach, and student became unmotivated to learn; classrooms and laboratories became non conducive for educational activities; and teaching content became alarming reduced within the time available. With this trend compounding itself in 1990s, universities in Nigeria, increasingly continue to manufacture half-baked graduate from heavily congested and obsolete factories contrary to what it was in the earlier stage; of university education in Nigeria, today, general commitment to teaching and learning (to scholarship)has become extremely very low. Administrative and financial autonomy: the increase in the number of capacity and poor funding made the university to consistently demand for administrative and financial autonomy, with the hope that this will enable the universities to diagnose problems facing the system and be able to find a lasting durable solution. Most countries embrace this idea of autonomy, but we need more scientific information for effective implementation of this policy in Nigeria to reduce pressures standardization exerted by the national universities commission (NUC) and other buffer other bodies by government. Campus crises, militancy and conflict management; as unionism (freedom of association) is a fundamental right of every worker, yet unionized staff militancy over salaries issues has been a major destabilizing factor within the system in Nigeria. In similar vein, lot of disruption has been witnessed through students violence and campus violent cult crises. University is therefore facing the problem of how to demilitarize our campuses. Research and innovation: while funding of scientific research can be obtained through different private and public sources, government, especially in Nigeria, play a dominant role in funding university research which private sectors ignores for lack of commercial values. Whereas grant to universities are on the increase else-where in the world, the flow of such funds has been impeded by certain procedural problems in Nigeria. While government was making apparent effort to fund universities research, high inflation rate in this period mopped up inadequate funds for university research Financing: Nigerian government have not been able to provide the financial resources necessary to maintain educational quality in the midst of enrolment expansion. By the end of the 1990s university expenditure per student in Nigeria had fallen to $360. In response the government announced its decision in July 2000 to increase funding to $970 per student and to encourage universities to generate an additional 10% of their recurrent budget from income producing activities. Apart from the above there are other challenges like the problem of recruiting the right and qualified teaching staff, retaining and rewarding the caliber of academic staff needed to sustain and improve both teaching and research, the problem of maintaining the infrastructure for research and teaching and the problem of making sure that the investment in university education is used to the best effect (Nwana, 2000).

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

Although there has been political context that degraded the quality of higher education in Nigeria through the 90s the government; inability to adequately fund higher education for current operations and address the deficit resulting from the deferred maintenance result is serious barriers to measurable improvement which according to Okebukola (2003) can be summarized as a. Inadequate facilities to support education excellence b. The impoverishment Nigerias primary and secondary education system which has resulted in many undergraduate arriving at the university without basic technical writing and scientific skills needed for undergraduate study

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c.

State control of the university system that has dictated classification of higher education without allowing for filtering of learners coming into the university system, setting faculty wages at level that will attract qualified instructors and researchers, and restructuring to attract new resources through tuition and fees

Higher education, though could be very important in assisting people in gaining employment there are still remain palpable barriers to this effect in the Nigeria context. The socio-economy connection, whilst always present remains especially critical in a quickly globalizing economic market in which quality control and production according to strict specification can be crucial indeed. How can this barrier be removed and improve higher education in its totality in Nigeria? First of all, it is very important for the Nigerian government to make significant progress in improving the quality and efficiency of secondary education prior to focus on the higher education section. Or still good enough, it could be pursued paris passu. Excellent examples of the socio economic connection of basic education reside in Asia with the speedy use of opportunities of global market for the reduction of poverty. In Japan the fundamental code of education issued in 1872, expressed commitment to make sure that there must be no community with an illiterate family or a family with an illiterate person. Thus with the bridging of education barriers, began Japans remarkable history of rapid socio-economic growth. By 1910 Japan was almost fully literate at least for the young and by 1913, Japan was publishing more books and twice more books than Britain and United States of America respectively, even though she was still very much poorer (Wasser, 2001).the concentration on education determined to a large extent, the nature and speed of Japans economic and social progress. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other Asian economies followed similar routes later in the second half of the 20th century, with their visions firmly fixed on general expansion of education. Nigerian can emulate the trend of the Asian educational development to aspire to greater heights in the benefit of higher education. Nigerians can surely learn from history and thereafter remain committed, and be firmly focused for the times ahead, THE CASE OF A WORLD- CLASS UNIVERSITY IN NIGERIA The degrading state of education in Nigeria is becoming so alarming, which has made Nigeria universities not to be ranked among the first 5,000 universities in the world and among the first 40 in African. One could also observe that with the trend of globalization as a trend that is engulfing the whole world and which has become panacea to many world problems, Nigeria needs a world class university system, to accelerate her development and make her relevant in the new modernity and globalized ranking. One could reason therefore That an international competitive educational system is the first step in building an economy that will bring home the dividend of globalization to Nigeria, which other developing economies through-out the world have been enjoying. Thus there is the need for a genuine dialog in terms of educational reform that will provide Nigerians with the skills needed to compete internationally. This reform should raise the level of knowledge capital to support an international society that has shed its colonial ties to agriculture and a sustenance social organization to sophisticated manufacturing and knowledge industries. World class university is also necessary to incubate and support the development of local indigenous business. In-spite of Nigerias eroded higher education system, there is evidence of innovations and regional success. Although Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural resources and creativity, too many false start and failed effort to improve education and entry into the race for globalization will put Nigerian society at long-term disadvantages relative to other developing economies such as China and India. HIGHER EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK Universities all over the world have the proud record of knowledge sharing that dates back to 100s of years. In this respect, the academic world was a global phenomenon before the word globalization was coined. The global market place and the information technology (IT) revolution that fuels it simply accelerate a process already well under way. IT facilitates a free flow of research and expertise, making the best information simultaneously available in Port Elizabeth of Samoa, Sokoto of Nigeria and Los Angeles of United State of America. In a view of this constant and continuing development in IT and new knowledge. A global electronic link server should be established in each university, solely for campus usage. The main aim of these electronic connections should be for the purpose of networking, collaborative research, studies and fellowship amongst student, graduates and their teachers all within tie perimeters of their offices, common rooms or lounge. Such

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internet connectivity is now fully operational in a few of universities e.g. Usman Danfodio university, Sokoto, Ife and Lagos. This should be extended in more details to all the universities in the country. Apart from knowledge transfer, learning and training, such network should get the student more focused academically and having less time for the deviant-behavior such as cultism. Therefore in order to be a full participant in the already unavoidable globalization, every effort should continue to be made to improve the status of higher education in Nigeria, so as to be able to admit and retain the service of the talented and ambitious young men and women teaching in the system. The scope of higher education, particularly, university education should also be expanded to include a wide-spread use of multimedia technology in teaching. It has been observed that a lot of university teachers that teach today in Nigeria do not know anything about computer. How would a teacher then teach and be professionally functional in this age of globalization when the world at large has become a global village if the teacher is not well equipped with the knowledge of ICT what is the teacher going to teach? How is he going to teach it? More-so, he is expected to teach current research knowledge, how is he going to teach it when he /she is ICT illiterate? STRATEGIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS TOWARDS BUILDING WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY IN NIGERIA (WAY FORWARD) Nigeria needs to start with good, genuine and targeted policy to reform higher education. Reforms that will promote university autonomy, that will give the university council the responsibility for institutional governance, the appointment of key officers restricting the power of the national universities commission and allowing university to set admission criteria, select students, develop curricular and restore grant funding are very imperative. To ensure efficient higher education system that would deliver an effective educational service, more strategic and symbiotic plans/objectives are considered central and must be diligently pursued. This nine point strategy would enable the nation to achieve the over-all goal of transforming the higher education sector. These are to; a. Provide increased access to higher education and to produce well equipped graduate b. Provide entrepreneurship curriculum opportunities for student across all disciplines in Nigeria higher education c. Promote equity of access and to redress pass inequalities by ensuring that student and staff profile progressively reflect the demographic realities of the Nigerian society d. Build new institutional and organizational identities through local, regional and international collaboration between different institutions e. Build high level research and teaching capacities to address research and knowledge needs f. Creates and facilitate global information networking within each campus and/or adjoining campuses g. Promote and sustain self-sufficient in funding via the fostering of a triple helix of University-Industry Government relations. The strategy would create more collateral partnerships and linkages with the middle of the helical structure as important stakeholders. That is industries, business and communities who benefit immensely from the university education. The universities should also derives mutual benefit from them, which could be inclusive of funding of research relevant to their practices or specialties h. Promote peace and security in the campus so as to ensure an enabling education friendly environment for easy teaching and learning i. Promote and active and vibrant parent-teachers association (PTA) These strategic points, if successfully adopted, will be able to assist-in the line of improved discipline, excellent cultural stability, awareness of negative effect of cultism and participatory funding. Why shouldnt an exemplary PTA for example, support of foot a good research proposal or finance a post graduate scholarship? All these points are sine qua non for boosting excellence in teaching and research in the universities. The universities themselves should plan to provide additional funding to promote excellent in teaching, to introduce new national professional standards for teaching and to provide better information on teaching standards to help student choice and drive up the quality of education. It is a fact that there is a pandemic problem of underfunding in all our universities; however, this should not negate our drive to improve the quality of higher education in Nigeria. Since government is burdened by numerous national problems, the universities should be less fully dependent on the government. Each higher institution can pursue self-funding by: promoting partnership and linkages with

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all stakeholder-locally, regionally and internationally; ensuring the provision of functional advisory, extension and consultancy services on issues that are relevant to the socio-economic advancement of the university and the nation; and founding of a government initiated body to be known as higher education funding of Nigeria (HEFON). The creation HEFON should be in partnership with oil industries and other corporate bodies. The funding from such a body should aim to assist and build on linkages and to develop a more strategic and nonprescriptive approach to the use of funds. The success of such a program had been documented after its first year of operation in the June 2003 report of the Brazilian embassy has put forward by Mondal (2006). These reports confirm that the United Kingdom (UK) and Brazilian academics benefited immensely from the opportunities of working more closely in international partnerships and linkages and had planned further activities for the future. The Brazilians universities were part of a larger program of nine priority research areas in the state of Rio de Janeiro which itself was part of a wider federal scheme. Two of these three were in engineering-related fields with strong links to the oil and gas industry in Rio, in particular, with the Brazilian oil company called petrol bras. These Brazilian research programs, in partnerships with consortia of UK universities focused on important and related research areas such as industrial catalysis corrosion protection (both primarily geared towards the oil and gas industry) and photo pharmaceuticals. So why cant a university or some universities in Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) or Shell Petroleum take a cue from this excellent example? Any of our university can work out a feasible ideology or program which we have designated as HEROIC initiative meaning, that is, Higher Education Reach Out to industries and community. Each Nigerians should pledge to introduce Centers of Excellent to celebrate excellent practices in teaching and research. In boosting academic excellent in teaching and research in higher education in Nigeria, very high quality research should be well funded whilst keeping strictly to the saving gown for town. The result of the research and teaching, its discoveries and new knowledge should be used for the improvement of town or community. Higher education effort should cover both basic and applied research, which should be responsive to the felt needs and expectation of Nigeria as nation. CONCLUSION The Nigeria of 21st century is facing a lot of problems with regards to national development. The present state of our country is such that there is economic depression, infrastructural decades and social disintegration. The desire of Nigerians is that this country must wake up and move forward. The required ingredient (human and natural resources) to move the country forward are there in abundance, university education is one of the vehicles needed to help Nigeria move forward. University education should give graduate both personal and intellectual fulfillment. The contributions of the university education to national development in the 21st century are far reaching and so, we cannot afford the risk of decline. For the universities to successfully face the challenges confronting them and make meaningful contributions to our national development, the country need education-friendly government, a civil society and public sector that is ready and willing to invest in university education and give recognition to those who have chosen the path of knowledge industry. It can therefore be concluded that the most sustainable way of meeting national objectives for international integration and prosperity is to invest in Nigerians through higher education and the best starting point is genuine reform of the underpinning policy system constraining the universities. REFRENCES Adebayo. A.G.(2OO5). Revisiting the Academic Tradition. university of Ibadan 28th Post Graduate School Interdisciplinary Research Discourse Alade I.A.(2006). Evaluation of technical education curriculum in college of education in southwestern Nigeria. Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Teacher Education. University of Ibadan. Nigeria (2004). National policy on education. Abuja Government Printing Press Nwana, O.C (2000). Aberrations in Nigerian education systems. In the state of education in Nigeria, UNESCO. Abuja office Nigeria.

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Mondal S.R (2006). Cultural globalization and globalization of culture. Okebukola P (2000). Trend in tertiary education in the state of education in Nigeria. UNESCO, Abuja office, Nigeria. Okebukola P (2003). Issues of funding university education in Nigeria. Abuja NUC. Ramon-Yusuf S. (2003). The role of national universities commission in Nigeria university. Abuja NUC. Received for Publication: 15/08/2011 Accepted for Publication: 22/10/2011

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